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ARA News

Ibrahim Bero, leader of the Kur­dish Yek­iti Party in Syria, revealed that the Pres­i­dent of the Kur­dis­tan Region in Iraq Mas­sud Barzani, who is spon­sor­ing nego­ti­a­tions between Syr­ian Kur­dish polit­i­cal par­ties, “will not accept the dom­i­na­tion of a sole polit­i­cal power on the entire Kur­dish region in Syria”.

In an exclu­sive inter­view with ARA News, Bero said: “The cur­rent chaotic polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the Syr­ian Kur­dish areas is the main rea­son for the divi­sion within the Kur­dish polit­i­cal move­ment in Syria.”

Cur­rently, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of thir­teen Kur­dish polit­i­cal par­ties in Syria are par­tic­i­pat­ing in nego­ti­a­tions under the spon­sor­ship of the lead­er­ship of Iraqi Kur­dis­tan in Erbil. Rifts were seen between these par­ties due to alleged attempts by the Demo­c­ra­tic Union Party (PYD) –affil­i­ated with the Kur­dis­tan Work­ers Party (PKK)– to take power in some Kur­dish areas north and north-​east Syria through its armed wing YPG or Pop­u­lar Pro­tec­tion Units.

“So far, we dis­cussed sev­eral sig­nif­i­cant issues includ­ing the acti­va­tion of the role of the Kur­dish National Coun­cil –coali­tion of 13 Kur­dish par­ties in Syria. Unfor­tu­nately, the PYD mem­bers boy­cotted the meet­ings in Erbil. Another dis­cus­sion was con­cerned with the role of the com­mit­tees of the Kur­dish Supreme Coun­cil –coali­tion of the the KNC and the PYD,” Bero said. “We believe that the lead­ers of PYD should show will­ing­ness to imple­ment the pre­vi­ous agree­ments between them and other parties.”

Accord­ing to Bero, the PYD tries to legit­imize the dom­i­na­tion of its armed forces (YPG) in some areas against the will of all other polit­i­cal forces, and refuses any nego­ti­a­tions and under­stand­ings in this regard.

“We didn’t dis­cuss in details the issue of the YPG fight­ers, but we empha­sized that any armed group in any Kur­dish area should be led by a joint polit­i­cal lead­er­ship from the Kur­dish National Coun­cil and the Demo­c­ra­tic Union Party,” Bero argued, adding: “Unfor­tu­nately, the PYD gives the only legit­imiza­tion to its armed YPG, and refuses the par­tic­i­pa­tion of any other party in the leadership.”

The Kur­dish Supreme Coun­cil, the alleged umbrella of all polit­i­cal groups in Syria, was founded in Octo­ber 2012 after an agree­ment was signed by the dif­fer­ent par­ties in Erbil, known as Hewler Agree­ment. The coun­cil was sup­posed to coor­di­nate the rela­tions between the KNC and the PYD, but a monop­o­liza­tion of power was appar­ently prac­ticed by the PYD over the coun­cil, accord­ing to the KNC mem­bers, includ­ing Ibrahim Bero.

“The Supreme Coun­cil is con­sid­er­ably con­trolled by the PYD, and other mem­ber par­ties are mar­gin­al­ized and deprived of the right as par­tic­i­pants in decision-​making,” he told ARA News.

Regard­ing the con­tin­u­ous rifts among Kur­dish polit­i­cal cur­rents in Syria and the accu­sa­tions directed to Bero’s party, he said: We refuse any accu­sa­tions with­out clear and ade­quate bases, and we con­demn aggres­sive reac­tions from any side on our views and activities.”

“We hoped that a del­e­ga­tion from the Demo­c­ra­tic Union Party PYD would join the dis­cus­sions we held in Erbil in order to trans­par­ently clar­ify their posi­tion on each issue we raised,” he stated.

None of the Kur­dish polit­i­cal forces had offi­cially joined the Syr­ian oppo­si­tion yet, and the Kur­dish National Coun­cil was recently invited to join the National Coali­tion of Oppo­si­tion and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Forces –the umbrella of oppo­si­tion currents.

“We have assigned a com­mit­tee to hold nego­ti­a­tions with the National Coalition’s lead­er­ship in order to look into the pos­si­bil­ity of our offi­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion in its ranks,” Bero added to ARA News. “We hope that all the rifts within the Kur­dish polit­i­cal move­ment will be solved soon, in order to start play­ing a sig­nif­i­cant role towards accom­plish­ing the legit­i­mate rights of our peo­ple in Syria.”